Disappearing dissent? Repression and state consolidation in Mexico

Does violent repression strengthen the state? In this paper we explore the legacies of repression by the Mexican government on subsequent state consolidation. We investigate how a particular form of state repression, forced disappearances of alleged leftist dissidents, during the 1960s and 1970s in Mexico had path-dependent consequences for different dimensions of state capacity nearly fifty years later. To do so, we rely on data gathered from suppressed Mexican human rights reports of forced disappearances which, to our knowledge, have not been analyzed by social scientists before. Controlling for a rich set of pre-disappearances covariates, we find that forced disappearances are positively correlated with contemporary measures of fiscal and bureaucratic capacity. However, historical forced disappearances do not help the state to provide security, to consolidate its monopoly over the use of force, or to provide welfare-related public goods in the long run. Moreover, disappearances are negatively correlated with various measures of trust in the government.